According to a recent announcement, Ubuntu will use its own Display Server called Mir. The reason for this is that "none of the existing solutions would allow us to implement our vision without taking major compromises which would come at the cost of user experience and quality".

Further more, Unity will be ported to Qt/QML "to make development more efficient across our wider convergent strategy".

According to the UnityNextSpec, Unity Next will be integrated on top of Mir and the UI will use Qt. The ultimate goal is to provide a seamlessly scale across multiple form factors and carry Unity's visual design and identity.

The target is to have a first level/functional integration of Mir and UnityNext by May 2013, by October 2013 to have a Mir-UnityNext code base that could be taken to product a phone and reach full convergence by April 2014.

Story developing...

I hope this puts an end to the lag on Unity once and for all. It sounds promising!

I would love to be using Ubuntu on my PC at work but it's impossible to get two video cards to work nicely extending the desktop with the current display server. If my recent adventure taught me anything, it's that Linux/Ubunutu needs a ton of work still to be taken seriously.

I would love to be using Ubuntu on my PC at work but it's impossible to get two video cards to work nicely extending the desktop with the current display server. If my recent adventure taught me anything, it's that Linux/Ubunutu needs a ton of work still to be taken seriously.

well you have to think, X11 was never designed to be used how it is today. it's severely limiting Linux's potential.

since Wayland development is going so slow this could be just what the linux world needs

I agree with ViperAFK. While this could certainly be a good thing, if other distros don't adopt it then it will never get proper support. Considering the state of Linux graphics drivers at the moment, I don't think fragmentation is going to help. While X11 certainly has its flaws, its primary advantage is that its ubiquitous. Any display server that wants to become the next standard (whether that be Wayland, Mir, or something else) would have to become similarly ubiquitous by convincing other distros to adopt it. Responsiveness to a wide array of developers and an open development process is the way to do that. Considering Canonical's reputation and lackluster first-party project support among other distros (such as Upstart and Unity), Mir is going to have a tough time becoming the new standard. Canonical have been doing a great job recently; hopefully they learned from their past mistakes.

well you have to think, X11 was never designed to be used how it is today. it's severely limiting Linux's potential.

since Wayland development is going so slow this could be just what the linux world needs

I will admit that I'm not too fluent in how Linux works under the hood, but in my situation I have found that Ubuntu's display server, while it may be more robust than in the past, has limited my ability to manually get a multi-display, multi-videocard setup to work. Way back when I was actually able to manually edit some config file for XOrg have it all work. My only point is that I am a bit disappointed that I'm completely out of luck here until perhaps this display server is done. One can only hope.

I don't get why Canonical are choosing to do this. Why didn't they just contribute to the Wayland project?

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MirSpec << Go here, scroll down to the "Why not Wayland/Weston?" section. One reason (according to that link) is that the Wayland protocol has similar issues as X w.r.t to input handling since input handling in Wayland and X is done basically the same way.

Because it's linux, and fragmenting is better than cooperating for a common goal.

this s seriously the main downfall of linux, and what keeps tripping it whenever it starts to get a good run.

There's a difference between fragmenting for no reason (like in the case of the 100 million different desktop environments) and fragmenting for for valid reasons which it seems are in play with this.